Here at the CMC we have been doing outreach to a few education organizations. Companies on both coasts include Udacity, Learnist, 2U, and …Our quick summaries:
EverFi
We spoke to Dominique Taylor, Talent Manager, with the Washington DC based education company EverFi about their niche offerings. Alum Mike Fee ’99 is also part of EverFi in the Bay Area. EverFi started as a tool to teach kids about critical life skills beginning with financial literacy. This module was targeted at middle and high school students. Games are used to teach kids about various financial terms and scenarios. At the end of the training, kids get a certificate. They now also teach digital literacy as well as addressing topics like substance abuse and sexual harassment and abuse. The K12 customers don’t pay for the resources as they are underwritten by corporate sponsors.
Right now, EverFi is focused on hiring for full time. They are not hiring interns at this point because they want to make sure that interns would have a great summer experience. Roles for MBAs in this 130 person company might include implementation, account management, marketing. Dominique can see that MBAs would be important to developing strategic partnerships. The product development team would also utilize MBAs to help improve current offerings and design new ones.
They do not have a typical background they are seeking. The company is made up of a group of hires from a diverse experience set. They are open to candidates with strong transferrable skills.
How do candidates land a job at EverFi?
- Talk to people that work at the company. Network.
- Learn about the company and industry
- Persistance and follow-up pay off
Next year, EverFi is hoping to launch a leadership development program to get MBAs into school manager roles.
Udacity
Udacity has gotten some great press lately and added online courses that are now accepted for college credit. It has been a great year for them. Recently Kevin Mills ’12 accepted a full time role. We spoke to Melissa in HR to find out more about recruiting. In the last year they have grown quickly from 20 to 60 people. The collaborative team works hard but they are innovative and passionate about changing education. Their mission is to reach students that might not have the same resources as those here in the Bay Area. According to Melissa, the leaders are truly visionary. They have been hiring very smart people that have experience as a student, teach or parent that has led to the issue of education access to become “close to their heart.”
They look for passion and candidates that are multi-talented. There are lots of analytical projects at Udacity – so having experience working with lots of data will make you a stronger candidate. They do not have a structured internship program this year. Melissa mentioned that they want to make sure that any interns that they hire have a meaningful project and mentor.
Learnist
Surf over to Learnist and you can learn to pack like an flight attendant, improve your interview skills, or investigate Bigfoot. We spoke to alum Dawn Cardon about the company and possible recruiting. After completing her MBA/MA in Education in 2012, she worked as a Sr. Product Manager at Altius Education for about a year. Through her connections, she heard about a great opportunity at Learnist – a social learning platform
People discussed the ways they use Learnist, from curating materials for students to involving them in the creation and curation process…. The question of Learnist’s comparison to Pinterest came up, with chat participants discussing the difference between the two platforms. Learnist is specifically geared toward the learning aspect of curation.
The company is based in San Francisco and is still pretty small. At the time we spoke, she mentioned that the company would be open to interns. Candidates might help them with analytics, metrics, reporting, and innovating on the operation model.
2U
We spoke to a talent manager Nicole in the hot online University startup 2U recently to see if they are looking for MBA interns. They certainly have been growing and hiring for online roles including marketing and operations.
They would certainly be interested in full time and summer candidates. Company is offering online degree programs – all online.
They help Universities with marketing online, admissions process, support resources such as registrar, and content strategy. They have a tech team that creates state of the art online courses.
They work with the professors to translate the content to the online platform. A big part of their unique offering is also working to create community with social platforms.
K12
K12 is a Washington DC based education company that for-profit education company that sells online schooling and curriculum to state and local governments. We spoke to recruiter Lexi Elliot, Sr. Recruiter, about their plans for next year. They have plans to look for candidates who are passionate about education and want to get on a general management track. They don’t have a specific role or opening but what is relevant to MBAs is the Head of School role.
Alumni at K12 include Allison Cleveland and Matt Arkin who is Head of School at Georgia Cyber Academy. Their other hiring challenge is that each state has their own rules about charter schools. The changes in policy can mean that they need to wait to make hires. They hope that candidates will be willing to stay flexible. Because they want to attract the best talent – they are thinking of a pilot rotational program that will include some great training opportunities. Homebase will be Washington DC.
>> How are MOOCs doing? More about MOOCs (EdSurge) and Much Ado about MOOCs
>> Year of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses)
>> MOOC Map